The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping

Starred review from November 28, 2016
Appelfeld’s novel delineates the process of becoming a writer, with details incorporated from his experience as a Holocaust survivor and refugee. The title’s sleeping man is 16-year-old Erwin from Czernowitz (formerly Romania, now Ukraine). Erwin has withdrawn into prolonged slumber after suffering deprivation and the loss of family during World War II. Fellow refugees carry him to Naples, where he joins a group of older boys exercising together, studying Hebrew, and learning to shoot—they then take a boat to what will soon become Israel and continue their training there. Despite pressure to let go of the past, Erwin continues to retreat into dreams for visits home, including conversations with his mother and father. Erwin’s group of trainees is eventually sent to a kibbutz to build retaining walls, tend orchards, and guard against infiltrators. Awake Erwin now goes by the Hebrew name Aharon, while the sleeping Erwin shares his hopes and concerns with his parents. Before reaching age 18, Erwin/Aharon is seriously injured in a military action intended to protect the kibbutz. Recovery comes slowly and painfully, but at last he begins to write, in Hebrew: just family names at first, then poetry, and finally stories in remembrance of things past. Erwin/Aharon’s physical and spiritual journey reveals the effects of war and dislocation. It also highlights the consolation found in cultivating old connections and latent talents. Throughout, Appelfeld focuses not on historical events or moral judgments but on the formation of a writer, one much like himself, able to transform memory into transcendent prose.

November 15, 2016
Prolific author Appelfeld once again delivers with a novel of great sensitivity, finely attuned to the difficulties of responding to post-Holocaust living.The sleeping man of the title is the narrator, Erwin (later renamed Aharon), who grew up in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe until World War II threw his survival into question (all based on facts from the author's life). The novel opens at the end of the war, after Erwin has emerged from a cellar where he's been hiding out for two years. He drifts to Naples, bereft of family and finding in himself a weariness he cannot shake. He and some other young men are separated from the refugee camp and given military training under the tutelage of Ephraim, a charismatic leader planning to lead his cadre into the conflict in Palestine that will end up creating Israel. Not only do the men get military training, but they also learn Hebrew, for Ephraim claims that Hebrew will help bond them by "[attaching] the language to [their] bodies." Erwin grows stronger but still feels an almost overpowering need for sleep, and this allows him the freedom to reconnect to his past through long, vivid dreams of his mother and father. Eventually, he's wounded in action in Palestine and confined to bed. During his slow recuperation he develops the goal of becoming a writer, a profession his father had aspired to but never achieved. To this end, Erwin spends his time copying verses from the Hebrew Bible, which informs both his literary sensibility and his prose style.Appelfeld's style is never flashy, but the plainness of his writing gives post-Holocaust events both starkness and power.

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Starred review from December 15, 2016
Trapped in slumber after WWII, Erwin is carried away from his home in Eastern Europe on refugee shoulders. The journey is long, but he sleeps on, only rising to drink water. The sleeping boy's dreams allow him to speak with his family, who seem alive, hoping to reunite with him. Not until Erwin awakens in Italy does he try to understand his shockingly changed life. He joins a group of young Jewish men training for a new life in Palestine. Readers experience Erwin's gradual transformation into a soldier and farmer on a kibbutz: he changes his name, speaks only Hebrew, carries a gun. But still he needs to sleep and dreamuntil a crisis fully awakens him. The story is gently tragic, intensely moving, and filled with metaphor. Careful reading showcases the author's exquisite poetic style, drawing us into Erwin's painful experiences and his determination to form an identity that encompasses his roots and honors what (and who) has been lost. Appelfeld is the Israeli author of more than 40 books, many of which have earned prestigious prizes. Another Holocaust survivor's search for identity is featured in Stewart O'Nan's City of Secrets (2016), and ghostly voices also speak in Eli Wiesel's Beggar in Jersusalem (1970).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

In this new work from celebrated Israeli author Appelfeld (winner of two National Jewish Book Awards), a young Holocaust survivor who barely recalls his journey to Palestine is injured during a night patrol at his kibbutz and, as he recuperates, moves toward the redemptive act of writing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2017

A survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, Appelfeld has built a body of work that examines the tragedy of the Holocaust and its effects on the Jewish experience. His newest work tells the story of a young survivor who travels from a refugee camp to a kibbutz in Haifa, Israel, to begin a new life. (LJ 1/17)

SEE ALSO: Appelfeld's Suddenly, Love (2014), Until the Dawn's Light (2011), Blooms of Darkness (2010), Laish (2009), All Whom I Have Loved (2007), The Story of a Life (2004)

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017

Award-winning Israeli author Appelfeld (Suddenly Love) offers a fictional account of his experiences as a young Holocaust survivor who has made his way from war-torn Europe to preindependence Israel. Apparently modeled on the author, the protagonist is the sleeping man of the title, who barely recalls his escape from the Nazi genocide because he slept through most of it. He is carried from the camps after liberation and brought to Italy, where other young men in his situation are trained to become citizens of their future homeland by working the land and learning to bear arms. As our protagonist spends more of his time awake, he has frequent flashbacks to real and imagined conversations with his parents, especially with his mother. We do not learn what happened to his parents during the war or whether they survived. The most intriguing parts of the novel are the young man's coming alive again, bonding with his comrades, and learning to begin a new life. VERDICT In keeping with the title, a dreamlike quality suffuses this well-translated tale, and though it is an effective conceit, some readers may wish that Appelfeld had provided a more specific grounding for his survivor's journey. Recommended especially for followers of this prolific novelist. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/26.]--Edward B. Cone, New York

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.